Thank you!

Thanks to your advocacy efforts on our behalf, we're happy to report that the recently passed Omnibus Spending Bill includes a very small increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities! While our work is not over with regards to the upcoming 2018 budget to be passed in the fall, the Omnibus Spending Bill represents an endorsement of the important work that the humanities do for our communities. These funds will continue to support our work of providing free access to authoritative content about Virginia's history and culture.

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University of Virginia

In this nineteenth-century engraving, University of Virginia students frolic on the Lawn, the grassy expanse at the center of the Academical Village. Thomas Jefferson's design included the domed Rotunda in the background and the flanking faculty residences, known as pavilions, that were connected by colonnaded student rooms. Figures can be seen atop the balconies of the pavilions, including a black woman—presumably enslaved—holding an infant at far left. This illustration, engraved by B. Tanner of Philadelphia, was positioned in the corner of a map of Virginia that had originally been created by Herman Boye in 1827. The map, which measured approximately five feet by eight feet, was updated by Lewis von Bucholtz in 1859. Because the original 1827 copper plates were used in creating the revised map, no major changes could be made and only seventy-five copies were printed. One element added to the map, however, was the chart beneath the illustration that lists the state's population of whites, slaves, and free blacks in 1790, 1800, 1810, and 1859. By 1859 slightly more than half the population was black—nearly half a million enslaved, and fewer than 60,000 free blacks.

Citation: University of Virginia Visual History Collection, RG-30/1/10.011, Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

Original Author: B. Tanner, engraver of University of Virginia vignette